If you like good music, classical guitarist Kaori Muraji’sPortraits is some of the best.

Listen to Portraits on Google Play

Kaori doesn’t just sit in a recording studio and play some tunes like a lot a classical artists do. She has put a lot of thought into the way this album is laid out. Just when you want to hear a little more slow lyrical guitar playing with those lush extended ternary chords, she switches to an impossible flurry of virtuosic technique. She stuns you with both musicianship and technical capacity from start to finish.

Just when you think you’ve heard everything she has to offer, she takes you on a educational journey of every sound this instrument is capable of making. But not just for the sake of using the whole guitar’s sound spectrum. She finds legitimate artistic reasons for playing near the bridge, in the center, both hands on the neck, using the body as a drum, open harmonics, pitched harmonics, ect. After using each sound, the listener is still fully present to the music itself. She relentlessly pulls the listener towards the big picture.

Kaori is not afraid to simply entertain her audience either. Tunes by Chopin, Bernstein, Schumann, Clapton, and Lennon along with an original arrangement of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus”, will pleasantly surprise you as you move through this experience. She rightly recognizes that familiarity adds contrast to a group of pieces like Portraits.

I generally get bored with classical music after a while. But I have listened to this album twice in a one day and was sad that I didn’t have the time to listen to it a third time. I’ll be surprised if the same doesn’t happen for you.

As some may have noticed, I’ve been in a slump. I am happy to announce that I am writing again, and am starting with an intermediate level band piece I think I’ll be calling “The Modulator”. The key continually goes around the circle of fifths while developing its melodic and harmonic content. It’s going to be a blast for high school bands to play, and will hopefully be ready to go in time for the spring semester of 2016. No promises, but I will do my best!

I prefer to write many of the notes out on a grand staff before I begin orchestration. I will share a little of this reduction when some of the ideas for this band piece are a little more solidified. Stay up to date on the progress through the Music Interactive Facebook page.

Here’s a fun little blip. We’ll see if it makes the final cut for the band piece! Keep in mind that I am thinking through the accidentals to be easily read in individual lines, not to be read by a pianist. Save you theoretical criticism for now!

Even though it wasn’t successful, this Kickstarter told us an important thing. You guys want this harmony app to exist! So far we have successfully built the iPhone version with the android version to come in a few weeks!

The harmony app features a menu where you can select a song. Then you can mute and un-mute whatever parts you want to hear. It shows you the words, and all you have to do it sing along. Perfect for teaching yourself and others the art of singing in harmony very quickly and easily.

We hope you find this to be a useful tool both for learning and teaching how to sing harmony. Enjoy!

We’ve gotten over 60% of our goal with four days to go! Of all the projects on Kickstarter, 98% of those that have gotten to this point have been successfully funded. Let’s make their record even better and get this Harmonizing App nice and ad-free.

Things you can do to help us out:

Spread the word to people who would benefit from the $25 sponsorship. We only need 5 more of those to reach the goal. Remember, if someone really wants a song on there that isn’t in the plan, we’ll include a request for $25 backers.

The hit stats on this Kickstarter are telling us that a lot of people are interested. Share this project on your social networks encouraging people to pledge just $2. If you know someone with an Android device who will probably buy the app, make sure they know that they will be helping us out by “buying it” (pre-ordering is what it comes down to) via Kickstarting in the next four days. It probably won’t take much encouragement.

We’re currently hard at work finishing up data entry for the bass lines. We’ll be adding the finishing touches to the development of the harmonizing app in the next few days. The only thing we’re missing is making it ad-free with this Kickstarter! Thanks so much for your support!

In honor of NaNoWriMo, I (Zach) wrote some python code to help you participate in this month of novel writing. The code below will read a text file online that contains a list of English words, then print out fifty-thousand of them for your brand new novel!

I found out that changing that 50000 to something smaller, like 7, can generate some profound little stories. Take a look at this artistic gem, for example: Once upon a time, moneybag heinous jellybeans wifeless sweetbreads overheat. The End.